Sherman’s March (satire)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: C+
Before it
became so common, the Rockumentary was a challenging type of forum, especially
in filmmaking and Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s
March (filmed 1981, originally released 1985) was an early example. Unlike Woody Allen’s early, underrated Take The Money And Run (1969), this one
uses actual people for it. McElwee
decides to take the original route General William Sherman during the Civil
War, but decades before Ken Burns made that war a staple of interest, McElwee
abandons his subject for the most part and chases after ex-girlfriends.
I can see
the humor here, but after nearly a quarter century, it has not aged well. This kind of thing has been done better since
and “reality TV” has also killed some of its luster. It is less pretentious as its distant TV
cousin of the time; the cheapo ratings hit Real
People. We had not been swamped by
bad media yet, so the naturalism of the people is almost charming, if it were
not an outright time capsule.
The full
frame image is dull and off of an old analog video master. Color is barely consistent and the images are
soft throughout. Who knows where the
master material is, but it sure looked better than this. Since this depends on the faces of the
subjects at hand, this hurts the humor.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is above average at best, as the film
consists of constant talking. Extras
include a small stills gallery, biography and personal letters of Sherman, bio and interview (under 6
minutes and also a spoof of sorts) with McElwee, and four previews for 4 other
First Run Features DVDs.
Some of
the tactics used here, outside of “going after the subject without care” go,
lives on in the films of Michael Moore.
Just letting the camera roll and people reveal themselves can reveal
people in interesting ways. Alex
Keshishian turned this on its head later with his 1991 hit Madonna – Truth Or Dare. Moore does this to expose hypocrites,
but sometimes ruins his credibility when that does not work. This does run on for 155 minutes, so if you
do not get into it early, you will be bored to death. Otherwise, you have to see it to believe it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
